


one day i will reach the ocean;

by maharieel



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Angst, Blood & Gore, Deadfire Spoilers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 19:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14775600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharieel/pseuds/maharieel
Summary: even the ocean can be tainted with blood, as unfair as it is.





	one day i will reach the ocean;

**Author's Note:**

> minor spoilers for the 'shadow under neketaka' quest in deadfire. you've been warned.

She rounds the corner to find a sea of corpses, and for someone like her the stench of death should be nothing but an old acquaintance. Una still finds herself stifling a cough though, hands white-knuckled around her blades, as she stares into the blood-soaked fog that has overtaken the sanctum.

Movement catches her eye to their left. Before she can slink away and behind the reptilian figure, or motion to the others, there’s a flash of blue beside her. Tekéhu is raging past her before she has time to turn and stop him.

He is screaming, Una thinks.

The others sigh and follow at her behest, the lot of them quickly gutting the remaining Naga. Their slick bodies slice open easily on her blades, quivers clattering into the ankle-deep water that has consumed the place, and she supposes she should feel good to have their blood splattered across her chest. Stepping delicately over the mutilated corpse of a young Aumaui woman, her beautiful hair torn and bloodied against her scalp, Una feels nothing but a deep-set sort of frustration.

Tekéhu is lost ahead of them. Again. She would have snapped at him if this wasn’t his home, if these people hadn’t been the mismatched colleagues that he had lived beside for years. Still, as his figure fades into the next room, she throws Eder a look.

“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Eder says to her, wiping at a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “No, he’s gonna get us _all_ killed if he keeps this up.”

Una nods more to herself than the tall human beside her. “Just keep an eye on him.”

Absently, she hears Aloth stutter out a sigh of resigned annoyance at her back. Una pretends not to have heard it as she moves forward through the grime.

The large antechamber is near pitch-black, the putrid smell of sea brine and death mixed together amongst the darkness. Naga corpses litter the damp tiles, throats slit and guts splayed out before them. _Messy_ , she thinks to herself, starting to kneel beside a particularly ravaged corpse wearing a headdress indicating hierarchical power. She barely gets to her knees before Tekéhu’s voice rings out through the emptiness.

“Mairu! Gods, but look what they’ve done to you!”

Una snaps her gaze to the familiar blue figure of her companion, as do the rest of them. Tekéhu is sprinting, water moving aside almost instinctually for Ngati’s son, towards a crumpled form on the other side of the room. Una leaves the Naga’s corpse behind and follows, the water giving her significantly more trouble, and eventually sees the source of his distress.

It is indeed Grandmaster Mairu. Her innards are barely inside of her, and blood steadily seeps from beneath where her hands are pressed against her torso. Tekéhu drops slowly to his knees beside her, face ashen, and immediately places his hands over hers.  

“Peace, Tekehu,” the older Aumaua sighs as Una finally makes it to her side. “I gave back ten times what I took.”

It’s bad. Una can almost feel Berath’s presence in the shadows of the room, hands slowly shifting closer towards them from the walls. She catches Eder looking at her, and nods at him to give them space. The others turn and leave, investigating the corpses littering the space instead.

Tekéhu’s hand are trembling where they are pressed against the wound, and within seconds they too become blood-soaked. Raising a bloodied hand, he stares at it in horror before pressing the back of it to his mouth to cut off a choked sob. Even through the dark, Una can see the sheen of tears in his eyes.

“We need to get you to a healer,” he whispers, before lifting his gaze to Una’s. “Where is Xoti? We need a healer now!”

Una reaches to grab his wrist where it is pressed against his mouth. Taking his much larger hand in her own, she squeezes it gently and turns her attention to the woman at her feet. “Is there anything we can do?”

Mairu spits blood down her chin ungracefully. “I doubt it, I say. There were too many, even for me.”

“You are too stubborn to die, old shark,” Tekehu snaps, but the strength Una suspects he had wanted escapes him and instead the words come out rambled and splintered with tears.

“For once, Tekéhu,” Mairu struggles. “Just _listen_.”

And so they do, the two of them, sitting in water and blood with the stench of death hanging in the air. Una feels his hand tremble out of control where she grasps it, and she slowly rubs circles into his palm as Mairu sputters out what she needs to say. Something about Ngati, and a rod, and a prisoner, but the blood pushes half of it together. In the end, her prayer to Ngati is half-whispered through glazed over eyes. Una wishes she didn’t know the look so well.

“Mairu?” Tekehu whispers, before pulling his hand from Una’s grip and clutching at his former Grandmaster. “Mairu!”

Like a child, his entire body curls inwards until she can barely see the body that lies between them. The sound of his sobs echo through the chamber, and it is all Una knows but to place a prolonged kiss on his exposed shoulder. His skin shivers at the touch, breathing erratic against Mairu’s hair, but Una leaves him be.

It is cruel, that out of the corner of her eye Una sees the purple-white glow of a soul appear beside them. The woman glances down at the two of them curled over her corpse with almost a look of pity.

“Protect him for me, child,” Mairu says, voice disjointed in death. “His heart is too soft for this.”

Una nods to her once, not knowing what to say, and with a melancholic smile Mairu’s spirit fades into a watery-ash beside them.

She hears Tekéhu mutter something under his breath, the language lost to her. When he pulls back, he places Mairu gently on the ground and wipes at his eyes with his wrist. He is still shivering, and his whole front is blood-stained now, the delicate blues and bronzes tarnished. A choked noise rips from his throat, and before he can break down again Una tugs him against her. His body envelopes hers, his arms easily encircling her small form, and she lets his briny tears run through her hair until the pain subsides.

Eventually he stumbles to his feet, staring at the far wall, and drags Una up with him. The others remain silent as they wander deeper into the sanctum in search of the rod. As they continue forwards, Una thinks it was a small mercy, for Mairu to have died in the water at least (later, watching the sun play against Tekehu’s features as he stares out at the open ocean, she thinks no Aumaua should have to die away from the sea at all).

**Author's Note:**

> travis willingham really came for me with the handsome, emotional fish boy and idk what to do with myself.


End file.
